Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-17

LEIIE: EOkI WORIh. .
l know in what part of the ship they be-
long When l can get the windlass in
the right place, and the sails set, and that
kee.-piece where 1t belongs, and that
foor timber right, and those ropes un-
tangled, will go ashore. 1 am an old
sailor and know all about ships for forty
years, and as soon as l can get the vessel
sfioat In good shape l will come in" A
man drifting by on piece of wood over
hears him and says: "You will drown
before you get that ship reconstructed.
Better do as l am doing. l know nothing
about ships, and never saw one before 1
came on board this, and cannot swim a
stroke, but am going ashore on this
shiyered TIMBER The man in the Off ng
while trying to mend his ship goes down.
The man who trusted to the plank is
saved. o, my brother let your smashed
up system OF theology go to the bottom
while you come in on splintered spar,
"Some on broken pieces of the ship"
You may get all ysur difficulties set
tied as Garibaldf, the magnetic Italian,
got his gardens made. When the war
he was living at Caprera, very rough
and uncultured island home. But he
went forth With his sword to achieve the
Liberation of Naples and Sicily, and gave
100000 people free govern ment under
Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi, after be-
ing
ABSENT TWO YEARS
from Caprera, returned and, when he sp-
preached it, he found that his home had
by Victor Emmanuel as surprise been
Edenized. Trimmed shru5bery had taken
the place of thorny thickets, gardens the
place OF barrenness, and the old rookery
in when he once lived had given way
to a pictured mansion where he
lived in comfort the rest of his days. And
| tell you if you will come and enlist
under the banner of our Victor Emmanuel,
and follow Him through thick and thin,
and fight his battles, and endure his sac
rifices, you will find after awhile that He
has changed your heart from a jungle Of
thorny skepIicisms into q garden all
abloom with luxuriant Joy that you have
never dreamt of. From tapgled Caprera
of sadness into Paradise of God.
l co not know how your theological
system went to pieces. 1t may be that
your parents started you with only one
plank, and you believe little or nothing
| Or they may have been too rigid and severe
| in religious discipline, a d cracked yCu
over the head with psalm-bOok. 1t may
! be that some partner in business, who
was q member of an evangelical church,
played on you trick that disguised you
with religion. 1t may be that you have
associates who have talked against Chris
| tisnity il your presence until you are call
| at Sea,n and YOU dwell more on things
that you do not believe than on things
! you do believe. You are in one respect
| like Lord Nelson, when signal was lifted
| that he wished to disregard and he put
his sea-glass to his Blind eye and said: Il
really DO not see the signal" o, my
nearer, put this tield-glass of the Gospel
no longer to your blind eye, and say l
cannot see, but put it to your other eye,
the eye Of faith, and you will see Christ,
| and he is all you need to see.
If you can believe nothing else, you GER
| tainly believe in
VICARIOUS SUFFERING,
| for you see it almost every Gay in some
shape. Last month the steamship Knick-
erboCker of The Cromwell line, running
between New Orleans and here, was in
great storms, and the captain and crew
saw the schooner Mary D. Cranmer of
Philadelphia in distress. The weather
cold, the waves mountain high, the first
officer of the steamship and four men pnt
out in litebOat TO save the crew of the
| schooner, and reached the vessel and
towed it out of danger, the wind shifting
SO that the vessel was saved. But the
five men of the steamship coming back,
their boat capsized, Yet rigbted again and
Came on. the Sailers coated with ice. The
| boat cspSiZed again, and three times up
set and was Tighted, and line was
thrown the poor fellows, but their hands
and arms were frozen so they could not
grasp it, end q great wave rolled over
them, an, they went down never to rise
till the sea gives up It's dead. Appreciate
that heroism and self-secrifiCe of the
brave fellows we all can, and can we not
appreciate the Christ who put out in 8
more biting cold and into more over
| whelming surge to bring US out of infinite
peril into everlasting safety? The wave
of human hate rolled over Him from one
side and the wave o. hellish fury rolled
over Him on the other. Oh, the thick
ness Of the night and the thunder OF the
tempest into which Christ plunged for
our rescued
Come in en- that narrow beam, the
beam of the cross. Let all else go and
cling to that Put that under you, and
with the earnestness of swimmer strug-
Cling for his life put out for shore. There
is great warm fire of welcome already
built, and already many who were as far
out as you are, are standing in it's genial
and heavenly glow The angels of Gods
rescue are wading out into the surf
TO CLUTCH YOUR HAND,
and they know how exhausted you are,
and ell the redeemed prodigals Of heaven
are on the beach with new white robes to
clothe all those who come in on broken
pieces of the ship.
My sympathies are for such all the
more because 1 was naturally skeptical,
disposed TO question everything about
this life and the next,
and was in danger of being further out to
sea than any of the PC in the 'Mediterra-